Senate leaders said late Monday that they were closing in on a deal to raise the federal debt limit and end the two-week-old government shutdown, just days before the Treasury Department exhausts its ability to borrow.

The emerging agreement would extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority until Feb. 7, reopen the government and fund federal agencies through mid-January, according to aides and lawmakers familiar with the negotiations.

In the meantime, policymakers would launch a new round of talks over broader budget issues in hopes of developing a plan to replace deep automatic spending cuts known as the sequester before Jan. 15. That is when the next round of sequester cuts is scheduled to slice another $20 billion out of agency budgets, primarily from the Pentagon.

The framework under consideration includes only minor changes to President Obama’s signature health-care law, falling well short of defunding it or delaying major provisions as conservative Republicans initially sought. Instead, Republicans would get only new safeguards to ensure that people who receive federal subsidies to purchase health insurance under the law are eligible to receive them.

But talks were hung up over another provision, aides and lawmakers said: a demand by Democrats to delay the law’s “belly button tax,” a levy on existing policies that is set to add $63 per covered person — including spouses and dependents — to the cost of health insurance next year. Republicans derided the proposal as a special favor to organized labor.

Meanwhile, Democrats were resisting a GOP demand to deny Treasury Secretary Jack Lew the use of special measures to extend his borrowing power past Feb. 7. That would give Congress a firm deadline for the next debt-limit increase, with no wiggle room for Treasury Department accountants.

“We’ve had a good day,” McConnell said in a speech closing the Senate for the evening. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve made substantial progress and we look forward to making more progress in the future.”

Reid agreed. “We’ve made tremendous progress. We are not there yet, but tremendous progress. And everyone just needs to be patient,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow will be a bright day.”

The big question mark Monday evening was whether the emerging agreement could win the approval of the Republican-controlled House, where a small bloc of conservatives has managed to direct GOP strategy.

“There’s a lot of different options we still have,” McCarthy said, adding that passing the Ryan plan is “always a possibility.”

There were signs that some House conservatives were growing anxious about the Senate talks. Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the most hard-line conservatives in the House, accused his Senate colleagues of “pussyfooting around” in the budget battle.

“The problem with Senate Republicans is that they always want to have a fight the next time,” Labrador said on CNN.

But Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close Boehner ally, said he was confident that McConnell would not sign off on a deal unless Boehner was convinced that it could win a broad majority of Republicans.

“McConnell, I don’t think, will deliberately put us in a bad position,” Cole said, adding that any agreement that creates a process to litigate broader budget issues would achieve an important GOP goal. “If you’re able to do that and you’re able to get some savings out of the entitlement portion of the budget, those aren’t Republican defeats. They are Republican victories.”

After weeks in which no one was negotiating about anything, Monday was a day of near-constant activity. It began with a two-hour gathering of a bipartisan group of 12 senators led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the primary sponsor of a separate proposal that appeared to gain strength Friday before fizzling amid Democratic opposition over the weekend.

After that meeting, the Republican members briefed McConnell and the Democrats briefed Reid. Collins said the group was “continuing to discuss the parameters of a deal” but acknowledged that “there really is a focus on leadership right now.”

Later, Reid ventured twice from his office just off the Senate floor, around the corner and down the hall to McConnell’s office, where the two spoke face to face. At midday, McConnell and Boehner met — the speaker was spied briefly as he made his way down a back hallway from his office to McConnell’s suite for a 25-minute update.

The White House had announced in the morning that Reid, McConnell, Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would come downtown at 3 p.m. to brief the president on their progress. But that meeting was postponed amid concern that it would interrupt the talks just as they were making headway.

With lawmakers trickling slowly back into Washington after a weekend at home, Republican leaders in both chambers decided to delay briefing rank-and-file lawmakers about the day’s developments until everyone was in town Tuesday morning.

It was unclear how things would proceed from there.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the ringleader of the failed effort to attack the health-care law, waved off questions from reporters about whether he would try to block the Senate from approving an agreement, if one were reached.

“We need to see what the details are,” he said repeatedly.

But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), another conservative, said he has little appetite for obstruction, even if he does not like the final deal. “We need to get an agreement and open the government back up,” he said.

Still, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has been close to the talks, acknowledged that the emerging agreement would be “a tough vote.” The misguided assault on the health-care law had diverted attention from more meaningful efforts to overhaul the tax code and rein in spending on Medicare and Social Security, he said. And now time has run out for achieving those goals.

“Let’s just spell out what’s happened: We’ve basically blown the last two months with some of our members and a lot of the House focused on a shiny object that was never going to happen,” he said. “To try to put something together in three days that has meaningful things we all would like to see in it is just not possible.”

As talks intensified, Obama warned that if the standoff is not resolved by Thursday, when the Treasury Department will run out of borrowing authority, “we stand a good chance of defaulting.”

U.S. financial markets fell slightly in morning trading but then stabilized. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average each dropped about 0.5 percent in the first 90 minutes of trading before rebounding to close with gains. In a more telling sign of market sentiment, the Vix, a measure of expected future volatility in stock markets, soared more than 12 percent before ending the trading day up 2.2 percent.

Bond markets were closed for the Columbus Day holiday. In recent days, investors have sold off short-term Treasury bills maturing later in October, fearful that there could be disruptions that prevent the government from making good on its obligations.

317 comments:

The good news is budget deficit has been cut in half :: The bad news is that it will stay in deficit after all of us are at one with the universe.

With all the current debate and anxiety about the federal government shutdown, we haven’t had time to prepare ourselves for the next fiscal cliff rapidly approaching — hitting the debt ceiling on Oct. 17. While some people may justifiably feel outrage that we need to raise the debt ceiling again, a simple look at the arithmetic of federal budgeting shows that a debt ceiling increase, while disturbing, is inevitable.

If you pass an annual budget that spends more than you bring in, you need to borrow the difference and that will increase your level of debt. It’s not the debt ceiling that’s the cause of the problem but the continuing habit of spending beyond our means and the resulting budget deficits. Even the very conservative Cato Institute recognizes that the problem is the amount of money the government is spending and that “deficits and debt … are symptoms of that problem.”

Due to a stronger economy and the effects of sequester, which automatically cut federal spending by $85 billion, this year’s budget deficit will be only $642 billion — down from the $1.3 trillion originally forecast. While everyone is congratulating each other for such a dramatic improvement, they seemingly fail to recognize that this $642 billion will have to be borrowed and inevitably, the debt ceiling increased.

Even the Paul Ryan budget approved by the House in May would not balance the budget until 2023. So even in the most conservative of forecasts, the debt ceiling will need to be repeatedly raised for the next nine years until the underlying budget gets balanced. Under the original Senate proposal, the federal budget never gets into balance, the total debt continues to grow and the debt ceiling will need to be continually raised.

The federal debt is important to all of us because it is slowly sapping the vitality and growth out of our economy. Since 1950, the U.S. economy has grown by an average of 3 percent annually but future projections are just above 2 percent and that may not be attainable. At the same time, the federal deficit as a percentage of the overall economy has surged from 26.2 percent in 1980, to 48.3 percent in 1992, to over 100 percent today. The federal debt is now as large as the total quantity of goods and services produced by the entire country. Another cause for concern is that 47 percent of the public debt is owned by foreign countries with China holding the most at over $1.1 trillion.

A recent poll by the Christian Science Monitor shows that only 38 percent of Americans support unilaterally raising the debt ceiling. The number supporting an increase in the debt ceiling rises to 50 percent when it is coupled with a commitment not to increase spending and 56 percent of Americans support President Obama negotiating with Congress on future spending. In response to President Obama’s notice in late May that he would not accept any conditions on raising the debt ceiling, the Republican House submitted a list of three alternatives that would raise the debt ceiling for (1) the remainder of President Obama’s term, (2) an increase to mid-2015 or (3) a short-term increase to mid-2014. To date, the president has not responded to these ideas but is holding firm to his "no compromise" position.

Congress will reluctantly increase the debt ceiling as it is the only realistic alternative, but it needs to use the opportunity to push President Obama and the Democratic leaders in the Senate to control spending. President Obama cannot continue to recklessly spend money that he doesn’t have and put America increasingly in debt.

Bob Fuehr is a retired telecommunications executive and was a candidate for the District 2 congressional nomination in 2012.

Good morning and welcome to our live blog coverage of yet another moment of truth in Washington. If the nation's legislators can't cut a deal soon – they have a day or two; just exactly how long is a matter for debate – then we get to find out if Warren Buffett was just being a hysterical ninny when he compared default to "a nuclear bomb".

Negotiations through the weekend failed to produce a deal, or clear a pathway to a deal. Since Friday, talks between House Republican leaders and the White House have fallen apart, and talks between the party leaders in the Senate have sprung up. The House is scheduled to convene again at noon, the Senate shortly thereafter, with Harry and Mitch leading the Conga Line wearing bi-parisan party hats.

The top priority for Congress is to pass legislation that would raise the debt limit sufficiently to fund the Treasury's accounts payable. They also need to pass a bill to reopen the federal government, which has been partially shuttered for 14 days now (it closed on 1 October). In the current environment, having the government closed is only Code Orange. The debt limit is the Code Red bit.

Investors are holding their breaths to see what the stock market will think of the weekend's dithering. Knowledgable analysts have suggested that a stock market crash may be the most likely spur to get Congress to actually act. The bond market was closed Monday for the Columbus Day holiday, but stocks opened and I made a little chi-ching. The Dow still was relatively unbothered by the crisis as it was on Friday.

The Treasury has said the “extraordinary measures” it has taken since May to cover expenses will be exhausted Thursday, at which point the government will be operating on about $30bn cash on hand and a prayer, with neither expected to last long. I hate when that happens

The traders at Goldman Sucks are just making money, hand over fist, on the market volatility

Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz will be getting a phat bonus check for the work he has done in destabilizing the US economy, roiling the markets and creating opportunities for a more profitable quarter at Goldman Sucks.

CHOTEAU, Mont. — Across North America — in places as far-flung as Montana and British Columbia, New Hampshire and Minnesota — moose populations are in steep decline ...

Twenty years ago, Minnesota had two geographically separate moose populations. One of them has virtually disappeared since the 1990s, declining to fewer than 100 from 4,000.

The other population, in northeastern Minnesota, is dropping 25 percent a year and is now fewer than 3,000, down from 8,000. (The moose mortality rate used to be 8 percent to 12 percent a year.) As a result, wildlife officials have suspended all moose hunting.

Here in Montana, moose hunting permits fell to 362 last year, from 769 in 1995.

“Something’s changed,” said Nicholas DeCesare, a biologist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks who is counting moose in this part of the state — one of numerous efforts across the continent to measure and explain the decline. “There’s fewer moose out there, and hunters are working harder to find them.”What exactly has changed remains a mystery. Several factors are clearly at work. But a common thread in most hypotheses is climate change.

Yesterday's dialogue between Rat (the in-house Israel hater) and Allen (the in house logical Israel defender) was interesting. Watching Rat cut and paste the most our of context statement, changing definitions right and left all to "delegitimize" Israel was funny.

Of course Rat cannot endorse either the League of Nation's STILL LEGALLY BINDING decision to give BACK "from the river to the sea" the lands in between to the Jew, nor the UN resolution that helped re-establish the State of Israel in 1948. Rat travels up and down the resolution highway citing this and that but never affirming the ORIGINAL 1948 resolutions nor the admitting that the Arab nations REFUSED those original resolutions.

Amazing performance from Rat, who has NEVER EVER been to Israel, never walked the streets, but has an opinion on why it should not be a state.

Sorry Rat,

Israel STILL IS.

The arab world? Still going down the crapper and all with out Israel's help.

Those authoritative governments that have long opposed the United States have been deposed, are in civic turmoil or the midst of economic deprivation. These would include Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq to a lesser extent.

Some would have us believe it is just plain dumb luck.Others believe that there is a "Plan".

There is, no doubt, a trend. Regardless of the "cause", the "effect" is plain to see.

It is good to have a rich and powerful Uncle on your side, a bitch when that Uncle gets pissed.

The first pillar “derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews.”

The second pillar is reflected in “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians.”

The third pillar is “Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group.”

In the US there are no religious or racial or ethnic identity laws.In the US there are no areas of residency that are hermetically closed, as is Gaza.In the US here is freedom of movement, "passes" are not required to travel the streets

The US is not nearly as authoritative as is Israel.Easily demonstrated, illustrated, because it is the truth.

Not at all, quot, .Affirmative Action is not to the benefit of the majority, as they are in Israel. Affirmative Action, where instituted remedies past "Identity Laws", is not comparable to them. They are design to foster inclusion, not exclusion..

Hermetically sealed, you provided us the list of items Israel permitted to enter Gaza. Illegal activities, done in violation of Israeli laws, don't count to the favor of the Israeli government.

Whether I choose to fly, or not, is a matter of utilizing "Mass Transit" which I avoid.. It is not relevant to travel passes between villages, as the Israeli require of the Palestinians.

Yes, Gaza is a part of Israel.

The Three Pillars of Apartheid, pursued by the Israeli illustrates the differences in authoritarianism between the US and Israel. Your weak attempts to describe Affirmative Action, as an equivalent to Israeli law boosting Judaism, just plain fail.

Not at all, quot, .Affirmative Action is not to the benefit of the majority, as they are in Israel. Affirmative Action, where instituted remedies past "Identity Laws", is not comparable to them. They are design to foster inclusion, not exclusion..

To many "Affirmative Action" benefits one select group on the basis of the color of their skin or gender to be superior to others.

The Michigan case arrives at the Supreme Court after time in front of a federal appeals court in Cincinnati.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an 8-7 decision, said the Michigan provision violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution as it places a burden on affirmative action boosters who would be forced to launch their own extensive, circuitous campaign to strip the constitutional provision, according to the AP.

That burden "undermines the Equal Protection Clause's guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change," Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr., write for the majority on the Cincinnati appeals court.

Opponents allege that due to the ban, proponents for racial considerations in admissions are blocked from directly lobbying universities like those seeking to use other advantages — such as family alumni "legacy," for example.

desert ratTue Oct 15, 09:04:00 PM EDTNot superior, quot, it benefits a class that was discriminated against, previously.If you lived in the United States you would realize that you are spouting pure bunk.But what else would we expect from an Israeli.

Thanks for the complement. Some day? I might become Israeli, and that day would be a proud day, until then?

Just an American that thinks you are as ignorant as large as our debt.

When the end of the fiscal year approached, just ahead of the date when we hit the debt limit, polls showed that a majority of Americans disapproved of Obamacare and some Republicans thought the time and circumstances were ripe to force its "defunding." Many conservative voices, including some very seasoned political observers, disagreed, saying it would be a very bad move politically, but they were ignored and the confrontation came.

The doubters were right. The strategy shifted the public's attention away from the shortcomings of Obamacare over to a discussion of the merits of the government shutdown, stepping on the original message. Obamacare's troublesome start on Oct. 1, which validated Republican arguments that it is a very poorly written law, went virtually unnoticed because public opinion hated the shutdown more than it hated Obamacare. Most of the blame for the situation has been attributed to Republicans. Yes, the president's approval rating has dropped, but Republican approval numbers have dropped far more.

The decision to force a shutdown violated one of the first rules of politics, going all the way back to Machiavelli: "Exploit the inevitable." When something is certain to happen, you should use it, however you can, to your own advantage.

Initially, that's what the Republicans were doing with Obamacare. It is one of the most unpopular laws passed in recent memory, a subject many Democrats do not want to talk about. It was inevitable that its implementation would be full of difficulties and expose its many weaknesses. Focusing on those weaknesses would have provided Republican candidates an issue around which they could build an effective campaign in 2014.

However, by forcing a shutdown in an attempt to kill Obamacare now rather than later, House Republicans went from exploiting the inevitable to ignoring it. They were warned; time and again they were told, "There is no way Democrats can lose this fight. They control both the Senate and the White House. Opposition to a default comes from a united front of business leaders and economic experts who are appalled at the thought of it. You don't have the votes to win and you'll get blamed for whatever goes wrong."

That is how it has played out. The Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, filibuster was good political theater — the "Green Eggs and Ham" bit will be remembered for a long time — but in the end, when the vote was taken, even Cruz voted with Harry Reid. His efforts were an empty gesture and did nothing to help Republicans.

The polls are reporting record-high disapproval levels, and the shutdown strategy is hurting them in this year's campaigns.

They had a chance to make gains in 2014 and even to take the Senate in 2016. They have likely blown any chance they had of doing either, especially if they fail to pass the debt limit increase. Maybe that is a good thing. IMO Obama is the worst president we have had in my life time. Reid and Pelosi are two sorry lumps. However, the GOP leadership is filled with people that are corrupt, incompetent, and possibly insane.

The economy, at least the economy the voter sees, has been stubbornly anemic. On foreign policy, Obama never wanted to go to war with anyone; however, he was moving that way due to the hawks in his administration, his own ill-advised words, and Bill Clinton calling him a wimp. He lucked out when his guardian angel, Mr. Putin, offered him a back door out of the mess he had gotten himself in. However, the public rarely gives you credit for problems you avoid but rather blame you for those you cause.

The GOP was on the attack with all the various scandals that riddle this administration, 'Fast and Furious', Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, the SEC, the FDA, HHS, DOJ, Lerner, Hillary, Sebelius, you name it.

Instead of taking advantage of the obvious the GOP has sucked all the air from these issues by shutting the government down which according to the polls is dragging the party down even further. It is all the news media is talking about.

Any resolution the Senate passes will be meaningless unless approved by the House.

The day before the government shutdown, the GOP majority in the House changed the standing rules so that rather than any member of the House being able to call the Senate bill up for a vote now only the majority leader, Eric Cantor can do so. If the Senate bill is passed and not brought to the House floor for a vote, one which would surely pass it, then it is obvious that it is the GOP who is responsible for both closing the government and failing to raise the debt ceiling.

You say you got a real solutionWell you knowWe’d all love to see the planYou ask me for a contributionWell you knowWe’re doing what we canBut when you want money for people with minds that hateAll I can tell you is brother you have to waitDon’t you know it’s gonna be alrightAlright alright

You say you’ll change the constitutionWell you knowWe all want to change your headYou tell me it’s the institutionWell you knowYou better free your mind insteadBut if you go carrying pictures of Speaker BoehnerYou ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhowDon’t you know know it’s gonna be alrightAlright alright

At the 'Covert Messiah' conference, to be held at the Conway Hall in Holborn next Saturday, Mr Atwill will present his theory that the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats and that they entirely fabricated the story of Jesus Christ.

Outlining his ideas in a blog posting on his website Mr Atwill writes: "Christianity may be considered a religion, but it was actually developed and used as a system of mind control to produce slaves that believed God decreed their slavery."

Mr Atwill says that acts of insurrection by Jewish sects, who were awaiting the arrival of a so-called 'warrior Messiah' in Palestine, were a perpetual problem for the Roman Empire and that after the Empire had exhausted all traditional means of dealing with the problem they resorted to psychological warfare.

"They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system," Atwill told PRWeb.com

"That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented.

"Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

Mr Atwill continues: "Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history.

To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East."

Elsewhere, Mr Atwill also writes: “In fact he [Jesus] may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources. Once those sources are all laid bare, there’s simply nothing left.”

Atwill says he made his discovery when while studying the New Testament alongside the 'War of the Jews' by Josephus - the only surviving first-person historical account of first-century Judea.

Mr Atwill claims that he began to notice a sequence of parallels between the two texts.

"What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus," Atwill claims.

"This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern", he continues.

"The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar."

When viewed with the latest scientific knowledge that the Ashkenazi Jews were European converts and not genetically linked to the Jews of Israel and that the mass conversions occurred approximately 2,000 years ago .

Scientific evidence lending credence to the idea that there was a spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity. And that the Romans would take action to stop the spread of rebellious Judaism and replace it with a creed that "urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

Initially, when I saw your post on Atwill's book, I assumed it was probably 'Book of the Month' at the Tetrahydron Publishing Group, however, I see that the conference mentioned is being put on by the Conway Hall Ethical Society

The Conway Hall Ethical Society, formerly the South Place Ethical Society, based in London at Conway Hall, is thought to be the oldest surviving freethought organisation in the world, and is the only remaining ethical society in the United Kingdom. It now advocates secular humanism and is a member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

part of the IHEU

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is an umbrella organisation of humanist, atheist, rationalist, secular, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations worldwide.[1] Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, the IHEU is a democratic union of 117 member organizations in 38 countries.[2]

I list these organizations not to criticize them or their goals in any way but merely to point out they would likely to be open to the theories espoused by Atwill.

My real criticism of Atwill is that the assumptions he posits seem to be illogical based on what we know of the Jews and of Titus. His theory is spotted with holes, so many of them it would take awhile to lay them out here. While I can do it when I get time, right now I'm pouring a beer and opening some popcorn and peanuts. Coverage of the ALCS Game 3 is getting ready to start.

The original version, is long lost.So, again, which edition are you referring to?

They are not the same, is each version a "foist"?The authorship of each of the "books" is also a matter of controversy, so again, it is hard to place a date on the original writing of the verbal myth. As it is lost, along with the authorship of the works, to history.

The version you quoted from Matthew is not the original version, is it?Sam applies to John, Luke and Mark.

I don’t believe the New Testament was compiled before 250 AD. Very few people were literate and books were extremely expensive so there was not much of a review process. The writing was influenced by Zoroastrianism, the myth of Mithra, Sungod of Persia and Koine Greek, which undoubtedly brought in mythology common in Greece and pre-Christian Rome.

As to accuracy, reciters were fairly disciplined and poetic to make the memory process easier so what was written based on the reciters was probably close enough. Other than wars and natural disasters, there was not much progress or change in generations. Personally, in my limited readings about Jesus, he would not have been fun at a family picnic. He had some serious issues and I could never read about the crucifixion without thinking he came to the conclusion that he just may have fucked up.

I was going to give a critique of Joseph Atwill's book Ceasar's Messiah but first wanted to see what his qualifications were as a biblical scholar. Evidently, they are about the same as those of Dan Brown. Although every article I saw about 'Ceasar's Messiah' describes him as a biblical scholar, he describes himself as a successful businessman and a 'long-time' student of Christianity. Most real biblical scholars describe him as 'way out there' except for the few that are way out there themselves.

I mentioned that there were obvious holes in Atwill's theory but rather than take the time to lay out all of them, just a few of them are mentioned in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnV0cJgTRiM

If you require more, I can give them to you.

Atwill was interviewed for an article in the Daily Mail and provide the following hope for his book,

Atwill does not believe that this is the end of Christianity, but hopes his work will give half-believers a reason to 'make a clean break'.

I think the real purpose of Atwill's book is simply to make a buck.

What one biblical scholar said in the same Daily Mail article,

But bible academic Professor James Crossley, from the University of Sheffield, compared Mr Atwill's theory to a Dan Brown fiction book.

He told Mail Online: 'These types of theories are very common outside the academic world and are usually reserved for sensationalist literature.

There are so many textual anomalies and contradictions in the Gospels, one is hard pressed to find some typical place to start. But how about Mark 16:9-20. The acknowledged oldest texts of the book omit these verses entirely. The JERUSALEM BIBLE (1966), fn."c", pg89 is an excellent commentary on the "long ending" v the original ending. All this leads the conscientious reader to wonder how many other textual liberties were taken - in short, legion.

The Gospel of Mark is thought to be the oldest of the synoptic books. It is certainly the most abbreviated.

One would hope that Mr Atwill could profit from his writing.Doubt that he would do as well as Dan Brown has.

Though the story of the Templar Knights, both those in bold text and that are read between the lines, is interesting in a historical and social context. The postulation that the Knights Templar were protecting the posterity of Jesus and Mary, not that compelling. Though the idea that they recovered "relics" in their diggings in Jerusalem, not far fetched.

It wold be even more unlikely that the Templars were protecting the "Blood Line" of Jesus if there was no historical Jesus, a man amongst men, who that could have fathered a baby girl.

In any case the historical record of the era is clouded, at best.Or there would have been some documentation of the conversion to Judaism of those European women that formed the foundation of the Ashkenazi Jews.

Of the " spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity " ... mentioned by AtwillWhich, to my knowledge, would have been out of character for the Jewish community.But that the were substantial conversions to Judaism, in that era, 2,000 years ago, evidenced by the existence of the Ashkenazi Jews, as a distinctly separate set of DNA groupings.

Based on accounts such as those of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, by the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, as many as 6 million Jews were living in the Roman Empire, but outside Israel, mainly in Italy and Southern Europe. In contrast, only about 500,000 lived in Judea, said Ostrer, who was not involved in the new study.

"The major Jewish communities were outside Judea," Ostrer told LiveScience.

The genetics suggest many of the founding Ashkenazi women were actually converts from local European populations.

"The simplest explanation was that it was mainly women who converted and they married with men who'd come from the Near East," Richards told LiveScience.

Another possibility is that Jews actively converted both men and women among local populations at this time, although researchers would need more detailed study of paternal lineages to test that hypothesis, Richards said.

The Naked Archeologist fella, he had commented upon the large Jewish population in Rome, when Harod's Temple was razed. But had never commented upon the nature of that population. Who they were, where they were from.

I find the whole topic to be very interesting.

An era of great importance, but clouded by the lack of an accurate written record, a preponderance of myth and dogmatic religious faith.

If there were 6 million Jews in Roman Europe, I find it doubtful that enough males could have come out of a population of 500,000 to have bred that many. If one in ten men had emigrated, that'd be about 25,000 males that would have left Palestine. To get to a population of 6 million, time consuming.

If more than that many emigrated, you'd think there would be a record of it.

Adds more credence to the idea that there was a " spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity ", some 2,000 years ago.

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders struggled late Tuesday morning to forge a new proposal to reopen the government and change the president’s health care law, after a plan presented behind closed doors to the Republican rank and file failed to immediately attract enough support to pass.

About two hours after the plan was presented Tuesday morning, Republican leaders backed off it. Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters that there were “no decisions about what exactly we will do.” ... Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, said that if House Republicans could not rally behind the proposal that their leadership rolled out Tuesday morning, they would most likely be forced to accept the plan taking shape in the Senate — something many Republican House members have already said is unacceptable.

“If our party can’t pass this, then there’s no doubt we’re going to end up with what the Senate sends us,” Mr. Kinzinger said. “Look, if my colleagues can’t muster together and sometimes accept good because they’re waiting for perfect, then that’s on them.”

Jesus was a real man, charismatic, teaching Jewish wisdom, who got strung up for his efforts. Some people saw visions of him after he died. There is nothing abnormal about this. Happened to my OGF, who saw her mother after she died, transformed, beatific. These events got written up in a mythy sort of way - psychology = myth = reality for us - and Jesus became the hero of the monomyth as is found in Matthew 4:1-17.

Who's the new illiterate peckerhead posing as John the Seer of Patmos?

Regarding apartheid, the team found that Israel’s laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Israeli law conveys privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantages Palestinians in the same territory on the basis of their respective identities, which function in this case as racialized identities in the sense provided by international law.

Israel’s practices are corollary to five of the six “inhuman acts” listed by the Convention. A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by Israel’s demarcation of geographic “reserves” in the West Bank, to which Palestinian residence is confined and which Palestinians cannot leave without a permit.

Quoting from the Executive Summary of the report, project leader Dr. Virginia Tilley explained that.... . . the three pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT.

In South Africa, the first pillar was to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups, and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group.

The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas,which were allocated by law to different racial groups,and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups.

And the third pillar was “a matrix of draconian ‘security’ laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination.”

... Israel’s policy and practices violate the prohibition on colonialism which the international community developed in the 1960s in response to the great decolonization struggles in Africa and Asia.

Israel’s policy is demonstrably to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently to Israel, which is the hallmark of colonialism.

Israel has appropriated land and water in the OPT, merged the Palestinian economy with Israel’s economy,and imposed a system of domination over Palestinians to ensure their subjugation to these measures.

Through these measures, Israel has denied the indigenous population the right to self-determination and indicated clear intention to assume sovereignty over portions of its land and natural resources.Permanent annexation of territory in this fashion is the hallmark of colonialism.

The second pillar is reflected in “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory.

This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians;

the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT;

the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank;

and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians.”

When Pompey (106–48 bc) invaded Palestine in 63 bc, Antipater (Herod's father) supported his campaign and began a long association with Rome, from which both he and Herod were to benefit. Six years later Herod met Mark Antony, whose lifelong friend he was to remain. Julius Caesar also favoured the family; he appointed Antipater procurator of Judaea in 47 bc and conferred on him Roman citizenship, an honour that descended to Herod and his children. Herod made his political debut in the same year, when his father appointed him governor of Galilee. Six years later Mark Antony made him tetrarch of Galilee.

During the conflict between the two triumvirs Octavian and Antony, the heirs to Caesar’s power, Herod supported his friend Antony. He continued to do so even when Antony’s mistress, Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, used her influence with Antony to gain much of Herod’s best land.

After Antony’s final defeat at Actium in 31 bc, he frankly confessed to the victorious Octavian which side he had taken. Octavian, who had met Herod in Rome, knew that he was the one man to rule Palestine as Rome wanted it ruled and confirmed him king.

He also restored to Herod the land Cleopatra had taken.

Herod became the close friend of Augustus’ great minister Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, after whom one of his grandsons and one of his great-grandsons were named.

Both the emperor and the minister paid him state visits, and Herod twice again visited Italy. Augustus gave him the oversight of the Cyprus copper mines, with a half share in the profits.

He twice increased Herod’s territory, in the years 22 and 20 bc, so that it came to include not only Palestine but parts of what are now the kingdom of Jordan to the east of the river and southern Lebanon and Syria.

I've thought it so humorous that Whackadoodle has dribbled piss on many occasions over something I didn't post that I'm almost thinking of just continuing this way. I assure my daughter hasn't figured it out yet though she may be up this way tomorrow to give it another shot.

Now you have fallen for the impostor yourself.

There is only ONE Fudd, and I am he.

:)

With a few exceptions I nearly agree with what Faux-Fudd has posted above however.

"The day before the government shutdown, the GOP majority in the House changed the standing rules so that rather than any member of the House being able to call the Senate bill up for a vote now only the majority leader, Eric Cantor can do so. "

I find that quite astounding as I've seen nothing in the press until I googled it. At Huffington Post they wrote:

"Republicans on the House Rules Committee changed the rule so only House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) could call up a Senate-passed clean funding bill "

Specifically that is referring to a funding bill that would re-open government. Does this rule change affect all Senate Passed Bills? If so, that could have profound consequences if, or rather - most likely, when they go to consider a Senate passed bill to raise the debt ceiling. Could Cantor block the vote on the debt ceiling bill? What is his past comments re the debt ceiling? Is he a Tea Partier?

That would be a pretty stupendous series of events:Senate passes debt ceiling bill and Cantor blocks the vote on that recent rule change forcing the US government to .... default!?

Robert Reich: Well it's a bad thing in two regards, even if you don't particularly worry about issues of fairness or public morality. It's bad, number one, because no economy can continue to function when the vast middle class and everybody else don't have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing without going deeper and deeper into debt. Seventy percent of the entire economy is basically consumer spending. And if consumers don't have the wherewithal to spend because all the money's going to the top, and the people at the top only spend a very small fraction of what they earn, then the economy is almost inevitably destined to slow.

Paul Solman: Well, I can imagine a future in which there's enormous productivity generated by relatively few people. (That may be happening even as we speak.) So there would be enough wealth to keep people fed and safely sheltered, and lots of diversions like video games....

Robert Reich: Bread and circuses, yes.

Paul Solman: Yes, bread and circuses, meaning Rome and the Roman strategy of about 2,000 years ago.

Robert Reich: You're right. We're approaching that already. The problem is that that would require redistribution. Structural unemployment is already very high.We also see that the ranks of the poor are growing. We're up to about 15 percent (of all families) under the poverty line, and that's very conservative. And the poverty line understates the true amount of poverty because it measures it as three times the breadbasket that a family needs, but it doesn't consider all the other things that are inflating far, far faster than food prices. You've also got 22 percent of American children in poverty right now. Those trends are getting worse and worse.

So your scenario where yes, we're getting more productive and so people may at least have adequate food and clothing and shelter...

Paul Solman: And good medical care...

Robert Reich: But look at the fight over the Affordable Care Act. In order to pull this off, we would have to have the kind of social spending that we (supposedly) cannot afford. The wealthy have so much political power, they've been managing to reduce their tax bills and enlarge their tax benefits. And the middle class -- basically their incomes are stagnating -- so they can't pay more taxes. So we can't even today finance the social safety net that, under your premises, we would need to keep everybody up to a minimum standard of living.

Paul Solman: Is it not plausible that what's happening is that we're living in a more and more skills-intensive world economy and that some people, perhaps because of who their parents married and their natural endowments and certainly their cultural environment, just have more of those skills than everybody else and they're getting rewarded for it?

Robert Reich: Well, undoubtedly that's part of the story. But if it were a matter of equal opportunity and anybody who had endowments could make the most of themselves, and had a really fair shot at making it in America, it would be one thing. But we know that 42 percent of poor kids born into poverty are going to stay in poverty for their entire lifetimes. That's a higher percentage than even in Britain, where 30 percent of people born in poverty stay in poverty. And Britain's is traditionally a rigid class society. We have less upward mobility than Britain; we have less upward mobility than any other advanced country.

Paul Solman: So you mean natural endowments can't explain it all?

Robert Reich: No, natural endowments don't explain it all. The biggest gains have been in finance, on Wall Street. Yes, some people with natural endowments do go to Wall Street, get their MBA's....

Paul Solman: And were read to as kids and were brought up to be ambitious and work hard and all the rest of it.

Robert Reich: But you see, Paul, we know empirically that we have a school system and an education system that is not very good, particularly for poorer and working class and middle class kids. We also know that it's getting harder and harder to finance higher education, especially public higher education.

Where I teach at Berkeley, the tuition and fees used to be zero in the 1960s early 1970s. They're now $15-18,000 dollars a year. Many kids are graduating deep in debt; their families are also in debt. We know that under the tax code in the 1950s, the highest marginal tax was 91 percent under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Even when you got rid of all the deductions and included tax credits, it was still over 50 percent.

Paul Solman: Although lots of people were laundering the money, avoiding taxes with tax shelters.

Robert Reich: Yeah, some people were, but even with tax shelters, the marginal tax that actually was paid -- the effective tax rate in the 1950s -- was so much higher than it is today. We had financial rules; we had the Glass-Steagall Act, which discouraged risk-taking at commercial banks; we prevented Wall Street from getting out of control and wreaking the kind of damage it has. We had limits on the amount of money that could infect and undermine our politics.

We also had investment in infrastructure: the national highway-building program, the biggest infrastructure in American history, perhaps in history up to that point. We don't do any of this anymore. We have essentially bought into what, to me, is a very dangerous mythology, and that is that the economy exists out there and we can't do anything about it. And that's a mythology because an economy relies on rules -- rules about everything from anti-trust to bankruptcy to taxes to how money can be spent politically. Those rules define an economy and the rules now are rigged.

The reason for building those giant dams in the West and the TVA was to produce electricity for use in manufacturing products for the American market. World War II made the construction of hydroelectric generation look even better. What would you build today that would do more than create short term employment? We already have bridges and highways to nowhere. Do we need more?

What we could use, allen, what the Us needs ....The repair or replacement of thousands of the bridges, built in the 1950s & 60s. We need new water infrastructures, both drinking and waste, in many communities. We need 3,000 ethanol distilleries.We need to increase the amount of electrical output from our nuclear fusion powered reactor.I am sure that if we put our heads together we could find a couple of other viable and productive infrastructure projects.

Conservatives objected both to the Senate bill and Mr. Boehner's alternative because they gave Republicans too little of what they had been demanding—major changes in the 2010 health-care law and measures to reduce the deficit.

...

"Forcing Congress to adhere to the same rules America has to adhere to, that's common sense and I support it," said Rep. Matt Salmon (R., Ariz.). "It doesn't move the ball up the field on people's lives one bit."

The conservative group Heritage Action urged lawmakers to vote against it.

Was over nighting in a Casino motel in 'East Cheap' the other night and tried to get in to give you all the dirty finger but your reputations precede you all, and was denied access on the grounds of "pornography".

Some of this I blame on Rufus who is always propositioning folks in the most lewd ways, but you are all guilty, even if you are men and women of no convictions.

The debt is not $17 billion, Ms T.$5 billion of thae "debt" is what they call ...Intragovernmental Holdings, which is a political accounting gimmick, but not real debt.It does represent an unfunded liability, in Social Security, but that is not a real liability, eitherThat was decided back in 1960, in Flemming v. Nestor .

This fact raises the obvious question, why are projections of deficits based on unaffordable healthcare costs always treated in the media as a basis for cutting benefits to seniors rather than a reason for cutting payments to providers like doctors, drug companies, and medical device companies?

There is no explanation except the bias of the media. Obviously they identify much more with rich doctors and the people who profit from the bloated prices charged in the United States by drug companies and medical equipment providers than with the seniors who are dependent on Social Security and Medicare.

In trying to get Obamacare passed, Obama needed to get Big Pharma on board. He did so by getting them to commit that over the 10 year budget period they would commit to cut drug costs by $80 billion. He agreed not to have the government negotiate pricing with them. Sounds OK, however, no baseline was established, no way to measure the $80 billion, no schedule set for the savings. How much do you think we actually saved from that deal?

Right to be disgusted? If you want to be disgusted take a look at this article from the NYT as re-posted in the Greanville Post.

Big Pharma is one of the biggest lobbying groups in D.C. The other day I was complaining about the GOP and how they had snuck in the Monsanto Protection Act. Sticking with the inhalers theme, the following link describes how the Obama administration and FDA aided the pricks from Glaxo and others by banning generic inhalers.

On this day four years ago, America was gripped by a nationally-televised odyssey in which a six-year-old child was believed to be caught in a runaway balloon in Colorado. The story of the “balloon boy” was later deemed a hoax.

It is said in the Gospels that Christ could bring sight to the blind. This is a metaphor. It is spiritual sight that is being spoken of here. I toured via Skype for a half hour today the office of a marvelous young woman at the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research in Hamburg, Germany who really is working with a group attempting to bring sight to the physically blind, or at least a slowing of the process or halting of it to those becoming blind through her work in brain imaging as it relates to blindness. This seems a miracle of a sorts to me and feel we need both types of efforts.

It is a strange world. I had never imagined I might see the inside of the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research in Hamburg, Germany.

I wouldn't have imagined how I would have ever been in there unless in was to spring Quirk out of some court imposed service to community sentence as a volunteer subject.

What a limited imagination this Farmer Fudd must have.That Skype technology is over a decade old.rufus talked about Skype and its utilization in running a national sales team, about five years ago.

I found it so unremarkable that there as no reason to mention it. We were conversing with friends in Sweden on a regular basis five or six years ago.

Regardless, even after rufus brought it up, it has been beyond Farmer Fudd's imagination ....... private video conferencing just an unfathomable concept for Farmer Fudd.

That Farmer Fudd could video conference, with people in Europe, obviously beyond his Main Street, Disneyland, USA perspective.He is still in awe of the technologies utilized in the Audio-Animatronic version of President Abraham Lincoln.

He admits to a limited imagination. His actions indicate a limited knowledge baseAnd an even smaller skill set.

Yet he will, without hesitation, provide us with guidance on how to manage the world

What a character, this fascist Farmer Fudd.Who would have believed I could have created such an accurate caricature of a foolish fascist....

1) You are following me around again2) You are making false accusations - I am the one who has always said the human race is ungovernable3) You are attaching labels that are absurd

And yes, I did know video conferencing has been around a long long time.

But no, not caring much about the workings of the internet, I didn't know you could speak to anyone in the world with a computer for no charge.

No one takes you seriously any longer. Why not give it up? You are still working age. If you were doing anything creative or important as she is doing, you would not be here. I have the excuse that I am retired. Which is not to say I shouldn't be doing more than I am doing.

You are not fit to shine her shoes. You are not just different, you are from different species.

You continually simply make yourself sound mean spirited and stupid, which is what you must do, because it is what you are and can do no other.

As even Quirk has now said, you are a liar, you misrepresent, you put words in the mouths of other people. And when you get frustrated you begin to swear, and finally come out with the death threats.

Farmer Fudd thins that Syria should be split, by US.That Iraq should be balkenized, by US.That Iran should be policed, by US.That Putin should be put in his place, by UThat the President is lost, but has implemented many of the policies Farmer Fudd advocated.

Farmer Fudd wanted to expand NATO, to include nations that are nuclear outlaws.Ha the "New" Farmer Fudd abdicated those positions. Surrendered without a fight?

I created Farmer Fudd. If your Google Account says Farmer Fudd, then you will be Farmer Fudd.Until then you are Anonymous.

I created Farmer Fudd, he is a caricature of a racist and fascist farmer.One that is continually bested by rabbits and rodents, the Farmer Elmer Fudd.

I am happy that you have embraced that character, as your own, but it is not yours, unless you get that sign-on.Otherwise my claim of prior use, stands four square when compared to your turd pile.

As to "following" you, to being "mean", better that than being a pussy that cannot do anything on his own, without a skirt to hold his hand.

Now, a to leaving, going away, neither is going to occur.I am going to stay here and dog you.Dog you until you profusely apologize.

Well rat you did publically tell us that you smoke pot and shoot weapons. Purchasing that pot is a crime. You are a criminal.

You did release AZ FBI ongoing investigations of a national security interest here at the blog...

You are a criminal.

Your activities are criminal. Hiding from the Feds are "criminal activities"

Nothing to apologize for.

Now your self confessed crimes of murder in Central America? You have denied that to high heaven and we now accept your just a blow hard wannabe and if anything you never served with Ollie North you just a liar.

The Marathon has 30,000 participants.The reason the Marathon is threatened ...

t the race, which takes off from Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, a site maintained by the National Park Service.

It was posted, just two days or so ago, that Utah cut a deal with the Federals, paying an average of aprox $20,000 per day to open National parks in Utah. Arizona is subsidizing the operation of the Park Service at the Grand Canyon.

All the organizers of the marine Corps Marathon is step up and cut a check. Which they should have done anyway. The Park Service should generate fees for service.

Cement given to Gaza used for jihad terror tunnels instead of schools and houses

Were these jihad terror tunnels built with cement that the Israelis gave to the "Palestinians"?

"Cement to Gaza Used for Tunnels Instead of Schools and Houses," from CAMERA, October 15 (thanks to Ian):

On September 26, Electronic Intifada published in its "human rights" section another of its endless depictions of Gazan deprivation caused by Israel's allegedly cruel policy of denying construction materials, mainly cement. The article states:

With the severe shortage of building supplies in Gaza, for example, construction has stopped on 13 government schools and tendering postponed on 26 others, the UN agency OCHA reported.Rehabilitation of the 76 kindergartens that were damaged during Israel’s November 2012 attacks on Gaza was also likely to be delayed or postponed, and the construction of a new building at Al-Aqsa University has stopped, OCHA added...“There are hundreds of construction projects pending in Gaza,” including many badly needed housing projects...

Now we know the real reason why the cement was so desperately needed.

On October 13, Israeli officials reported that security forces had uncovered a large tunnel penetrating deep into Israeli territory. It is reportedly large enough to facilitate the transfer of a battalion sized military force. According to Israel sources,

Security forces last week discovered the terminus of the tunnel some 300 meters inside Israel proper, near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha... The tunnel, which began in Abbasan al-Saghira, a farming village near Khan Yunis, was described by officials as being 18 meters deep and 1,700 meters long. Officials estimate it took around a year to construct.Officials estimated that 500 tons of cement was used to construct the tunnel. On October 14, the discovery of another tunnel was reported, rigged with explosives....

“A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle ,and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”

Fortunately, we veteran assholes have learned to have exact discipline. It's a good thing for America we are assholes. It was some Navy assholes put two rounds to the head of Bin Laden and gave him the classic burial at sea. Too bad our President isn't an asshole.

I call being an asshole part of a . . . . SKILL SET . . . .and to verify that with any veteran.

The ESL dropout, quot, immediately tells us that I called all veterans assholes.

His comprehension skills, they lack depth

A couple of veterans come to the table, agreeing that being an asshole is part of the culture of the military.It is part of a skill set.

I see that quot is still calling avatars names. ....... attacking the character of the characters, as it were.

Very Hegelian, but we shall not go there, now.

We will not discuss the Chief Rabbinate of Israel's report that the government of the secular state of Israel has murder 20,000 Jews in 2012, or that they have murdered a like number of Jews in every year of the 21st century.

No, we will skip that, for now.

We shall focus upon the secular state of Israel.The secular and apartheid state of Israel.

I still work for the Navy, despite two Reduction-in-Force events that reduced the workforce at Keyport to one-third of the 1990 levels, precisely because I'm a veteran. Company K054 at Orlando RTC, March 1984. Beep School, CTT "A" and "C" Schools at Corry Field, Pepsicola FL, ancillary other training at Nofuck Vagina and Sandog CA. I could scan my DD-214 and throw it up on my website but why bother, you're a troll.

upreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia issued what’s sure to spark a fury of debate between the warring sides of affirmative action, telling a packed courtroom on Tuesday that the 14th Amendment wasn’t penned simply to protect blacks.“My goodness, I thought we’ve … held that the 14th Amendment protects all races,” he said. “I mean, that was the argument in the early years, that it protected only … the blacks. But I thought we rejected that. You, you say now that we have to proceed as though its purpose is not to protect whites, only to protect minorities?”Justice Scalia made the comments in reference to the Supreme Court case about a Michigan voter referendum that banned race as a college admission consideration.Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed at odds with Justice Scalia’s assessment of the state backlash against affirmative action.“It was intended to bring back segregation and appears to have done just that,” she said, The Post reported.The 14th Amendment grants equal protection to all citizens.

WiO:SO I guess you can call Ms T, Xenia, Teresita (and numerous other names) a "SHE"

Instead of a DD-214, when I get home from work today I am going to write "FUCK YOU WIO" on a piece of paper, have my husband photograph me holding it, upload it to my site, and link it here. And that will lay the issue to rest. Maybe. Unless you really want to piss Deuce off.

quot continues to discuss his perception of the character's character.

Who cares about those fictions.

We will keep the discussion on current affairs, global and local.

Like the secular and socialist state of Israel which is built upon...... the Three Pillars of Apartheid .....

We will be discussing the Three Pillars of Apartheid ...

How Israel implements them in PalestineWhy it is important.Why i is a "Better" topic than the murder of 20,000 Jews annually by the socialist state of Israel, as reported by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Yep, apartheid in Israel is a more divisive topic, amongst the Jewish community, in the United States than abortion.According o that Pew poll released a few weeks ago. Liberal voters will shudder at apartheid, while winking at abortion.

The Jewish community of the United States is basically liberal, supporters of Social Justice.

You accused desert rat of murder.You accused Deuce of conspiracy to destroy evidence in a capital crime.

You can profusely and profoundly apologize, or we will dog you to the end of the internet.Challenging every racist statement, every offensive thought, every call to limit liberty.Every time you call for US intervention abroad, we will dog your ass.In the valley, on the hill top, on the blog.

Or you can apologize for your past offenses.Your claims that others here have committed crimes, have destroyed evidence.

As you say, your knowledge of the internet and computers is very limited. Your limited cognizant ability and lack of general knowledge can be explained, by you, in your apologies.

If you chose not to apologize, I will treat you like a bitch.And dog you to the end.

North Carolina has become the first US state to suspend its welfare program because of the government shutdown, and others states have warned that their assistance programs could run out of funds by the end of the month.

"We are heavily dependent on federal dollars," Julie Henry, spokeswoman for the state health and human services department, told Reuters. "When these kinds of things happen at the federal level, it has an immediate impact."

It cost $4.7m in federal funds to maintain the program in September and state lawmakers are asking the governor to reassess his decision to halt the program.

Last week, North Carolina also suspended its WIC program – which provides food for low-income pregnant women, new mothers and children up to the age of five. The state redirected funds and reinstated the program two days later.

The USDA has said WIC and the Snap food stamps program do not have guaranteed funding through the end of the month, moving states to tap reserve funds.

WaPo: Traffic plunges 88% at Healthcare.gov since launchPOSTED AT 9:21 AM ON OCTOBER 16, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY

To paraphrase one of the more memorable lines of American cinema: If you build it badly, they’ll stop coming. Every private-sector firm operating in the on-line market discovered that in 1995 or so, but the Obama administration only just started to learn it after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the world’s worst web portal. And now consumers are staying away in droves, according to the Washington Post:

The number of visitors to the federal government’s HealthCare.gov Web site plummeted 88 percent between Oct. 1 and Oct. 13, according to a new analysis of America’s online use, while less than half of 1 percent of the site’s visitors successfully enrolled for health insurance the first week. …

Based on a sample of two million users — or 1 percent of all online users in the U.S. — which Millward Brown Digital has permission to track, it suggests that the rush of traffic administration officials cited as the cause of the site’s problems trailed off within a matter of days.

Of the 9.4 million unique visitors to the site during the launch’s first week, according to the analysis, roughly a third attempted to register, and a third of that number — 1.01 million — completed registration. Ultimately, roughly 36,000 Americans signed up for an insurance plan online, the report said.The Post shares a graphic that was making the rounds yesterday to show just how poorly the web portal functions:

ocare-pyramid

If any commercial web portal only ended up with a 0.384% success rate in its first week of operation followed by an 88% plunge in traffic, the project team would find itself out on the street. If it happened to a publicly-traded company that sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into the project, the CEO and the executive management team would be joining them on the sidewalk. But this is the Obama administration, where accountability is just a term they like to use about their opponents:

The White House stood by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday, as Republicans called for her resignation over the botched rollout of ObamaCare.

The primary website for consumers to sign up for insurance is still not functioning as promised, two weeks since its launch.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that President Obama still trusts Sebelius’s stewardship of his signature legislative achievement.

“The secretary does have the full confidence of the president,” Carney said during his daily press briefing.That speaks volumes about the President, doesn’t it? And about the central legislative achievement of his term in office, too.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.